In response to Kos's thread on the merits of primaries, I think that this incident with Hackett is going to hurt us because it has the potential to damage our standing among veterans, and thus will make our party look weak and divided. The withdrawal of Hackett also brings back a broader question: are primaries good for the party, or detrimental? In my opinion, it depends on the specific primary and the slate of candidates.
There are some good examples of how primaries do NOT help candidates, such as in the NYC Mayoral race in 2001, where a divisive runoff between Mark Green and Fernando Ferrer caused ill will among some of Ferrer's supporters, who in turn didn't turn out in as high numbers. The 1984 and 1988 Democratic primaries for President were divided with sectional candidates, and in turn, because the votes of several cancelled each other out, we wound up with Mondale and Dukakis. In 2004, I remember reading several Progressive websites, and I saw Dean, Clark, Kerry, Edwards, and Kucinich supporters tear each other limb from limb, calling someone's candidate a "DINO" or claiming that they would vote for Nader or the Green Party candidate if their guy didn't win or stayed home (I'm sure that some people did this but kept it too themselves.)
However as Kos said, some primaries can be good. Actually though, with Obama, we won in part because of implosions among the upper-tier Democratic candidates (such as Blair Hull, although Obama's own merit was what chiefly helped him, but problems with other candidates also contributed.)Primaries can also be good in getting the party message out. For example, while the 2004 Primaries may have seemed divisive to the netroots, Bush's job approval numbers fell during the Democratic primaries because the public heard was how awful Bush is. We also managed to energize the "Anybody but Bush" contigent by highlighting his abuse of power. Regardless of which candidate we supported that year, we fought against Bush TOGETHER.
In this election there are several elections in which having a primary is a good idea, so long as we have at least two viable candidates who are civil in pointing out each other's criticisms. In Montana and Rhode Island for Senate seats, we have this example. I think that Tester and Brown are just as formidible as Morrison and Whitehouse, and all four of them can beat Burns and Chafee (or Laffey, here's to hoping the GOP has a divisive primary in Rhode Island :)!)
However, in places such as the New York Governor's race, where Suozzi is running against Spitzer for little more than ambition (according to a NYTimes article from a month ago, we wants to run now, because if Spitzer wins, then he won't have his turn to run for years.) and he is also taking donations from people with a grudge against Spitzer, like Home Depot founder Kenneth Langone. Likewise, in the Maryland Senate race, I think that Kweisi Mfume should drop out, although people will flame me for saying this and accuse me of being racist, I don't feel that he is electable compared to Cardin, and has some baggage with illegitmate children:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Unfortunately, if party leaders encourage him to drop out, then many black voters in MD could have the mistaken perception of racism and site on their hands or vote for Michael "I think stem-cell reasearch is like the Holocaust" Steele
What do you think, Kossacks? I think that primaries can be unifying or can be divisive, because it depends on who is running.